Direction for Hung Hoa sedge mat craft?

(Baonghean) -The sedge weaving craft in Hung Hoa was recognized as a traditional craft village in 2005.

According to the commune People's Committee, the commune currently has about 800 households making sedge mats, using 65 hectares of intensive sedge cultivation with an annual sedge output of about 800 tons. In recent years, the sedge growing area in Hung Hoa has decreased sharply, due to the Vinalines Maritime College project, the low-income apartment project... using up to 300 hectares of land and most of it is agricultural land, including sedge growing land in Hung Hoa. Faced with the fact that they will receive compensation for the sedge growing land that is recovered, many households are no longer interested in making sedge mats. Many sedge fields have not been invested in and cared for, and some areas have been abandoned.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Xuan (Phong Thuan hamlet - Hung Hoa) collects dry sedge as raw material for weaving mats.

The above reality also stems from the fact that growing sedge and weaving mats is very hard work, and the income is not worth much. Each sao of sedge gives about 1.5 quintals of dry sedge, but the harvesting, drying, trimming, and selecting stages are quite laborious. Each floating mat (1m wide) costs only 20,000 VND, and those who are active can weave 4 mats per day, earning less than 100,000 VND. Because of low income, unable to compete with imported mats, many people seek other jobs or move to other places to find work. The commune People's Committee has also sent people to learn mat making in Thanh Hoa and Ninh Binh provinces to develop, but limited funding makes it difficult to implement and deploy.

In the coming time, the relevant departments of the city need to support Hung Hoa commune in re-planning the production land area in general and sedge growing land in particular, thereby rearranging labor in the sedge mat craft village, having a policy of investing in machinery and technology to improve product quality, and linking to find consumption markets for the craft village to develop.